Tag Archives: Chimera

I know it looks like I forgot, but I didn’t. I wanted to forget, but I didn’t.

Oh, no. I did my duty and watched “Ghouli” twice within the first 24 hours of it airing. I watched it a third time before finalizing these musings. I’d like to tell you that time and distance has settled all dissatisfactions. They have not.

I mean, listen. You don’t want to hear me kvetch. I don’t want to hear me kvetch. I’ve kvetched enough. And frankly, I’m not annoyed enough to kvetch. Not really. It seems these days when it comes to The X-Files, I’m either staring at my screen under half lids of bored bemusement, or I’ve closed my eyes completely to ask God for patience. This must be that state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness that Scully so duly described to us in one of her famous voiceovers.

I never thought I’d say this, but I half miss how ticked off Season 9 made me. At least it gave me a reason to feel passionate.

But enough about my cold love. You’ve come here to discuss William – the boy who once was lost but now is found… sort of. I think it helps to know nothing whatsoever about an episode before watching it. That’s what I did here so that I had no preconceived notions or expectations, good or bad. I didn’t even know this was definitely going to involve William until Scully finds him lying “dead”.

And he is dead. Because whatever else happened or will happen, a funeral has been held for the William of my imagination. Ladies and gentlemen, William is a punk.

I kid. The William of my imagination isn’t dead. #headcanonwins

But I’m not kidding about Mulder (?) and Scully’s lost alien-miracle-super baby being a punk. To be sure, he’s a two-timing, game-playing punk. Scully still seems rather fond of him, though. She has her reasons. In fact, here’s the story of that lovely lady:

Once upon a time, in an episode the excellence of which seems an alternate universe away now, Scully lost Mulder and found herself pregnant in “Requiem” (7×22). The mom-to-be kept mum about it (get it?), but most everyone assumed the unnamed father was the improbably named Fox Mulder. In “Per Manum” (8×8), two possibilities are raised at once. One, Mulder impregnated Scully through IVF, you know, as a friend. Two, Scully was made pregnant by men who, what else? Were trying to create an alien-human hybrid. This second possibility remained, despite the vague assurances of episodes like “Existence” (8×21) (RIP the majesty of MSR) and hung over William’s head all of Season 9. Oh, and then there was the whole plot line about him being the New Messiah, come to bring salvation to the human race, but I don’t have time to go over that. If 1013 can ignore it, so can I. Anyway, by the time William is “cured” of his Carrie-like abilities and abandoned without so much as a few days to think it over, “William” (9×17) assumes Mulder’s paternity. Scully even calls him “our baby” to Mulder in “The Truth” (9×19/20) (italics hers). I need not mention IWTB, or Season 10 of the revival, or the whole “Mulder needs stem cells from his son to survive the alien apocalypse” plotline.

I need not mention them, but I bet you wonder why I do. Why rehash this nonsense at all? Because I want to know when in the good Green Goblin William became the product of experiments conducted by a Dr. Masao Matsumoto, formerly of Virginia. No, I want to know how William got to Virginia in the first place.

As to my first point of bewilderment, I’m sure this Dr. Matsumoto plot has something to do with the nefarious hints dropped by CSM that he’s somehow William’s “father”, that William is the product of science experiments conducted on a pregnant Scully, not a miracle given by God to Mulder and Scully after years of pain and heartache. As to the second, Wyoming, anyone?

Sigh. Anyway, so much for the buffalo flag. And so much for William’s adoption protecting him from the government that wanted to kill him. At no point is the irony of his current predicament addressed, considering Scully gave him up only because he was in danger. Then again, I think the failure of this episode is that there’s too much ground to cover in a MOTW. Think of it: Mulder and Scully find William. They find William dead. They believe William is a murderer who committed suicide. William is reunited with his biological parents. He loses his loving adoptive parents when they’re murdered by the people after him. William is discovering his superpowers. Mulder and Scully discover their son (still) has superpowers. He’s a regular Pusher in the making. Mulder and Scully kinda sorta confirm their son is the result of government experiments. William is a teenager all alone in the world and on the run for his life. William is a two-timing punk.

Call me Mariah Carey right now because I cahn’t, dahlings.

Verdict:

Who feels this is anticlimactic?

I’m raising both hands. And lifting a toe.

Maybe it’s not William’s fault he’s a punk. Maybe it’s James Wong and 1013’s fault for stuffing too much in the emotional bag of this episode rather than neatly unpacking it. Maybe if we had even a second to watch William mourn his life, either the life he had or the one he never got to have. Maybe if 1013 didn’t stubbornly insist on keeping Mulder emotionally distant from the William situation.

All hail Gillian Anderson and the one moment of this episode that felt real, true, and well, interesting.

C

Snowflakes:

I always expected William to be a much more powerful version of Gibson Praise. At least all my hopes weren’t completely disappointed.

Unless they’re on The X-Files in which case unhappiness is bound to find them. And if they won’t admit it’s found them, someone might just go mad. Or grow feathers. It’s a toss-up, really.

Take Ellen Adderly, whose pent-up anger has turned her quite mad. She’s so upset that her Norman Rockwell life is falling apart that her dissociative rage has manifested as a split personality disorder. When she’s not Susie Homemaker, she transforms into a… a what? A crow monster? Is that even a thing?

Let me preface my complaint by saying I quite like this episode. In fact, I like it so much I’ve surprised myself. I remembered enjoying it originally, but the details were fuzzy so I got to relive it, not quite from scratch, but with eyes ready to observe. I consider that a plus since, up until recently, there were no new X-Files forthcoming and, inevitably, there will always be a finite number of them. Anything akin to a newish watch is appreciated by me.

But this otherwise classically trained Monster of the Week episode has a few weaknesses, the main one being that the monster isn’t scary in the least. The second is that despite attempts to distract the audience, the answer to the mystery is fairly obvious within the first ten minutes of the show. Sure, the teaser makes it look like we’re in for an X-Files/Mean Girls crossover, but no one believes that the working class Jenny Uphouse is the killer. That would be too easy. The next suspect in line is Ellen Adderly, since she’s the only adult the monster appears to who doesn’t wind up dead.

The third weakness is that the monster feels familiar. We’ve seen something similar in “Arcadia” (6×13), another episode that exposes the seamy underbelly of suburbia. Though there, the homeowners collectively created a monster through their out of control desire for perfection. I’m also reminded of “The Walk” (3×7), even though there Leonard Trimble uses astral projection to psychically take vengeance on his enemies when he’s physically unable to.

So, the monster doesn’t excite me. Then again, neither did The Flukeman.

What does excite me is that, like with “Theef” (7×14), I get a vintage X-Files vibe from this episode. I’m happy to report that the weather is dreary and atmospheric. Not that they could have planned that, but it looks like rainy season in Southern California was working to the production’s advantage. The story, maybe by virtue of feeling familiar, comes across as something that would have fit well in Season 3 or 4. Also like the old days, it manages to be quite humorous without ever feeling “light.” (You know I love “light,” but they can’t all be like that.)

The interactions between Mulder and Scully over the phone are priceless. Over fifteen years after first seeing it I was still laughing aloud. I’m surprised I don’t see this episode quoted more often, especially considering how ship-heavy the fandom is. We haven’t had a game of Telephone this good since “Chinga” (5×10)!

Seeing Scully stuck in squalor while Mulder lives it up in Leave It To Beaver land, eating gourmet meals and having his shirts pressed, is a hoot. And we all enjoyed Mulder admitting that he has an atypical “significant other,” right? Because he doesn’t have a significant other, he has a Scully. But since round about Season 2 or 3, the depth of their relationship has basically precluded any other significant others for either of them. “Not in the widely understood definition of the term” is right. Then again, if that’s the case, then it would seem to contradict the upcoming “all things” (7×17), but we’ll get to that.

Verdict:

Just because there are roses in the garden doesn’t mean crazy isn’t in bloom. They’re all crazy in this town. They’re mad to think that they can live phony lives and get away with it.

That Sheriff especially must’ve been crazy to try to juggle three women at once. I’m surprised he made it to the end of the episode alive. Or maybe he’s supposed to live with the knowledge that his behavior triggered all this death and mayhem. Ellen had to break every mirror in sight to avoid seeing who she really was. What did he have to do?

All in all, a good solid offering and the best writer David Amann has given us so far.

B+

Crow’s Feet:

In which Mulder gets beaten up by a girl.

If you wanted a divorce, Sheriff, why did you impregnate Ellen so she could “lock you up good?” She didn’t get pregnant on her own, you know.

What’s with The X-Files and mirrored ceilings?

It turns out that Gina Mastrogiocomo, who plays Jenny, died in 2001 and this was her final performance. That made me sad! She was in Goodfellas and that’s one of my favorite movies.

Best Quotes:

Scully: Well, I hope we catch her so she can tell us… before I have to spend another night here. You know, Mulder, I don’t know about you but I find this all very depressing, this round-the-clock exposure to the seamy underbelly.

Mulder: That’s the job, Scully: vigilance in the face of privation, the sheer will that it takes to sit in this crappy room spying on the dregs of society until our suspect surfaces. There’s something ennobling in that.

Scully: [On phone] Mulder, when you find me dead, my desiccated corpse propped up staring lifelessly through the telescope at drunken frat boys peeing and vomiting into the gutter, just know that my last thoughts were of you… and how I’d like to kill you.

Mulder: [On phone] I’m sorry, who is this?

———————–

Ellen: Do you have a … a significant other?

Mulder: Um, not in the widely understood definition of that term.

———————–

Mulder: So you were having an affair with both Jenny and Martha Crittendon?

Sheriff Adderly: [Nods]

Mulder: I got to hand it to you, Sheriff. You put the service back into “protect and serve.”